THREE Presidents shot within the vivid memory of
Americans not old! This is the record in the freest country on earth. But the
latest, and in all the fourth murderous, attack upon a President is the most
significant and threatening. The earlier assassins were moved by temporary conditions;
the latest acted on a theory which, consistently carried out, would subject
to foul murder all public officials whomsoever; and this theory is one known
to be held not only by a single miscreant, but by other foreigners in various
parts of this country, whose sense of “duty”—the very word used both by Czolgosz
and by the assassin of the Empress of Austria—may at any time lead to as dastardly
a performance as that at Buffalo.
No wonder that the whole nation has been profoundly
stirred, not merely by sympathy, grief, and indignation, but by a sense of danger
and a desire to do whatever may be wisely and safely done to prevent a spread
of that disease of the mind and morals which leads to such far-reaching crimes.
While lawyers and laymen, statesmen, legislators,
and others are debating as to possible legal remedies, a great deal of good
is being done by discussions in the press and elsewhere of general and moral,
rather than legal and specific, remedies. It is very much to be hoped that these
discussions may have a powerful effect upon that public opinion which is the
ultimate and supreme lawmaker and ruler of communities.
In the first place, the guardians of public morals
have been given a text from which to preach against all forms of violence. The
wretch who attacked President McKinley seems to have been inspired directly
by the enunciation of anarchical doctrines; but in a country where illegal,
violent, and murderous acts are constantly being performed by mobs of citizens
who take the law into their own hands and hang, shoot, and burn human beings
“for the public good,” in such a country how can it be expected that individuals
will not sometimes act on their own peculiar theories of “public good” and perform
executions without warrant of law?
So much as to the possible effect of conspicuous
and illegal acts of violence. But violence of speech, as is now clearly shown,—and
as was shown, also, in the case of the Chicago anarchists,—leads surely to violent
action. The ravings of anarchists, it is evident again, lead directly to murders
by anarchists. Cause and effect work as exactly in the psychological as in the
obviously physical domain.
There is a wholesome appreciation, moreover, at
the present crisis, of the fact that professed anarchists are not the only promoters
of anarchical sentiment in America. The sordid and assumed friendship of “yellow
journalism” with the working-man whom it deceives and deludes has led to utterances
which may prove as dangerous as any emanating from the convinced, or demented,
or solely criminal advocates of anarchy. Now and again the decent portion of
the community has a period of intense realization of the demoralizing influence
of the “loathsome press”; such a period is now upon us; it will be interesting
to note how long this revival of indignation will last. [149][150]
Again, there is a new sense of the danger of allowing
proper and patriotic criticism of the public action of a national Executive
to pass over into abuse so violent as to be little less than an instigation
to murder. This is an outrage difficult to regulate by law, but easily regulated
by public opinion. Personal vilification and gross caricature of a nation’s
chosen representative and chief magistrate should be abhorrent and unendurable
to a self-respecting people.
The words “Liberty and Happiness” were always
being joined in the speeches and writings of the founders of our republic. The
phrase represented the ideal toward which the world, by its most liberal and
sympathetic leaders, earnestly and hopefully strove. “Liberty and Happiness”
were supposed to have been established by the written constitutions of the United
States and certain other countries, and by the unwritten constitutions of others;
and indeed there has been a genuine advance, we believe, in human liberty and
in human happiness. But this country is finding out, through painful experiences,
that our “free government” does not make certain all forms of happiness; it
does not insure our system from deadly attack in the person of its rulers; it
does not make our whole Senate pure; it does not, in itself, save all our State
and municipal governments from corruption. When a people has obtained its freedom,
it may be only beginning to learn the lesson of self-government. There are ill-regulated
minds, even in a republic like ours, that interpret freedom as license, and
would make free speech the handmaid to free murder.
The opening of the twentieth century is crowded
with events that should induce sober reflections and lead to strenuous efforts
to supplement our liberty with those virtues that alone can preserve a state
and make the happiness of its people an inalienable possession.